Category Archives: riots and pogroms

April 3, 2015 · 5:44 am

Emotional Turmoil and Rumour-Mongering: World Cup Defeats, Pogroms & Elections

Michael Roberts

Though hardly surprising,** Sri Lanka’s ignominious exit from the World Cup in ODI cricket this year has inspired some ridiculous criticisms of team selections from cricket enthusiasts who have not evaluated the difficulties posed by a series of unfortunate injuries or the questionable alternatives facing the Selectors in every instance of player position/selection. Such waves of criticism are not uncommon from fans of particular sides in many parts of the world. However, the Sri Lankan story this time round is reminiscent of the malicious rumours swirling around the World Cup selections before and after the final match at Mumbai in the World Cup 2011 (some concocted by Rajapaksa-haters and/or opponents). It is therefore appropriate that I reproduce the essay*** that I penned on that occasion and place it within a political space — not least because it dwells on the horrendous crimes inflicted in 1915, 1958 and 1983 upon minority communities who were Sri Lankan through and through. Continue reading →

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Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, British colonialism, communal relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, doctoring evidence, governance, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, Muslims in Lanka, patriotism, politIcal discourse, power politics, Presidential elections, propaganda, Rajapaksa regime, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, vengeance, violence of language

March 29, 2015 · 1:22 pm

Forging New Paths in Sri Lankan and Colonial History

Nira Wickramasinghe’s Metallic Modern. Everyday Machines in Colonial Lanka, Oxford/New York, Berghahn Books, 2014 ISBN 9781782382423… 192 pages, 20 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-78238-242-3 $70.00/£44.00 Hb Published (January 2014) …. ISBN 978-1-78238-243-0 eBook

“This is a most engaging book from a well-known author… a timely contribution concerning an important subject that is attracting renewed and sustained interest from historians of late….” · Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh

“This book is academically rich, analytically sophisticated and full of insightful interpretations that make it a valuable sourcefor scholars and students from multiple disciplines. It will also be a pleasant read for those who are simply curious about the dusty machines that sacredly and majestically occupy a small corner of their grandparents’ homes, still covered with a cloth.” · The International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter … SEE IIAS-review-Metallic Modern for full version of review by Shyamika Jayasundera Continue reading →

Charles Sarvan’s Essays in Sri Lanka : A Paradise Lost?

“This modest collection is dedicated to those few Sri Lankans, women and men, who have publicly and persistently stood up for values which would make the county a truly ‘beautiful’ island: a happier place for all, irrespective of ethnic group, religion, sex or class. (I mean attributes such as freedom and justice, decency and equality: sama samaja). In different ways and in different degree, they have paid a price.” ……..ISBN 978-93-84129-59-0

Publisher: CinnamonTeal Publishing, Goa, India ………………Email: contactus@cinnamonteal.in

II. ‘Race’ versus religion: sharing some thoughts ….. A fresh essay by Charles Sarvan

One of my sons took me to see the Martin Luther King film, ‘Selma’, which opens with 15 September 1963 and the explosion at an African-American Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four children. The scene reminded me of the poem ‘Ballad of Birmingham’, published in 1968 by African American Dudley Randall (1914-2000): “Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?” “No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren’t good for a little child.” “But, mother, I won’t be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free.” “No baby, no, you may not go For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children’s choir.” She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet. The mother smiled to know that her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face. Continue reading →

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November 21, 2014 · 7:49 am

The Poet Richard Murphy’s Account of Killings in the 1980s in Sri Lanka

Padraig Colman, Extracts from his “Rambling Ruminations of an Irishman in Sri Lanka,” at http://pcolman.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/richard-murphy-long-version/

………. I was surprised to learn that Murphy spent a great deal of his childhood in Ceylon where his father, Sir William Lindsay Murphy was the last colonial Mayor of Colombo (and first Municipal Commissioner from 1937 to 1941). Richard was taken to Ceylon at the age of six weeks, having been born in a damp, decaying big house in the west of Ireland. The young Richard Murphy spent holidays in Diatalawa, which is not far from my home. After leaving Ceylon, Sir William succeeded the Duke of Windsor as Governor of the Bahamas. Continue reading →

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October 27, 2014 · 6:32 am

Buddhist Extremists in Sri Lanka and Burma on the Warpath

Latheef Farook, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, 11 October 2014, where the title is “BBS – Wirathu Agreement: Declaration Of War On Muslims In Sri Lanka And South Asia”

Anti Muslim Sinhala racist outfit Bodu Bala Sena(BBS), which does not represent the mainstream Sinhala Buddhists, but had done considerable damage to pit Sinhalese against Muslims in the name of Sinhalese and Buddhism, together with Myanmar’s convicted criminal Ashin Wirathu, have declared war on Islam and Muslims in Sri Lanka and in South Asia. As part of this program the two sides, BBS and 969, also signed a special agreement aimed at creating South Asia free of what they described as (Islamic) terrorism and religious fundamentalism.

Bhikkhus listen to Wirathu at Sugathadasa stadium, Colombo — Pic AFP

Addressing the Sangha Council meeting, organized with pomp and pageantry by the BBS costing millions of rupees on Sunday 28 September 2014 at the Sugathadasa Stadium, Ashin Wirathu, the dreaded leader of the 969 movement, the architect of the massacre of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and described by TIME magazine as the “face of the Buddhist terror” told, that his organization 969 would work with the BBS to fight so called Islamic terrorism. Continue reading →

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September 14, 2014 · 3:17 pm

Tamil Person and State: Essays

Michael Roberts

Essay – Cover

THE LTTE AND PRABHAKARAN

CHAPTER 1.….Inspirations and Caste Threads in the Early LTTE … 1-43

CHAPTER 2…..Hitler, Nationalism, Sacrifice: Koenigsberg and Beyond … 44-68

CHAPTER 3…..Hero Figures and Hitler in Young Pirapāharan’s Thinking … 69-89

CHAPTER 4…..Tamil Tigers: Sacrificial Symbolism and‘Dead Body Politics’ … 90-100

CHAPTER 5……Killing Rajiv Gandhi: Dhanu’s SacrificIal Metamorphosis in Death? 101-31 Continue reading →

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September 13, 2014 · 2:05 pm

Jaffna. Exorcising the past and holding the vision

Neville Jayaweera’s autobiographical reflection on the ethnic conflict … is already raising a storm in Sri Lanka. Here is the PREFACE by Susil Sirivardena

This book is a testament to a lifetime of action and reflection by Neville Jayaweera, a Sri Lankan Civil Servant, endowed with a rare vision of what it means to be civilized. Its distinctive feature is its granite-like commitment to ethics and values, supported by an intrepid intellectuality. While remaining rooted in his native soil he also comes across as drawing strength from a reality beyond the mundane and while he seems a person of the Enlightenment and of modernity, he also seems undergirded by an unflinching commitment to his conscience. Summing up the impossible contradiction of his role as the Government Agent of Jaffna in the mid-sixties, Jayaweera says that it was like keeping his nose to the grindstone while at the same time keeping his eyes focused on the stars! Whilst remaining firmly anchored both to heaven and to earth Jayaweera’s career seems an attempt to fill the space in between, both as Yogi and as Commissar, as he describes it, borrowing the title of a famous essay written by Arthur Koestler. Continue reading →

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Filed under centre-periphery relations, cultural transmission, disparagement, economic processes, governance, historical interpretation, language policies, life stories, nationalism, political demonstrations, politIcal discourse, power politics, reconciliation, religiosity, riots and pogroms, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil civilians, unusual people, violence of language

July 19, 2014 · 9:37 am

A Fascist Bhikkhu Force in Sri Lanka?

Tim Hume, CNN, with help from Iqbal Athas, 18 July 2014 … and the original title as “Fascists in saffron robes? The rise of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist ultra-nationalists”

BBS general secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara at a press conference in 2013.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

An ultra-nationalist Buddhist group has been campaigning against Muslims in Sri Lanka
The Bodu Bala Sena is blamed by many for inciting religious riots that left 3 Muslims dead
A month on, a monk who gave an inflammatory speech before the riots has not been charged
Observers say it appears the group is operating with impunity, fuelling the fears of minorities.

Continue reading →

Victimized Muslims of Aluthgama-Beruwela express Grief and Legitimate Resentment

Dharisha Bastians, courtesy of Daily FT, 19 June 2014 ……. http://www.ft.lk/2014/06/19/what-was-our-crime/

Thousands of displaced people in the riot-rocked towns of Beruwala and Aluthgama are too afraid to go home again – and many of them have no homes to return to

…..Pix by Ishara S. Kodikara (AFP) and Shilpa Samaratung

The watcher at the Al Humeisara Central College in China Fort is compulsive about keeping the tall gates padlocked at all times. He ushers authorised vehicles in and hurriedly shuts the gates behind them, casting furtive looks on the road outside. Inside the closely-guarded gates, schoolroom desks and chairs are stacked in corners. All the signs of mass displacement abound – large water tanks, truckloads of relief items and make-shift first aid centres. Infants and toddlers snooze in the stifling noon day heat on the floors of fly-infested classrooms. Some of them are only a few weeks old. The children seem to be the only ones removed from the anger and sorrow that is pervasive in the schoolyard. Thrilled to be skipping school and surrounded by dozens of playmates, they put the Al Humeisara swing sets and climbing frames to good use. It could be Vavuniya or Batticaloa five or six years ago. Except that the camp lies barely 60 kilometres from the capital Colombo and this is not a war zone. Continue reading →

Prabhākaran’s Megalomanic Bonapartism juxtaposed with Sinhala Buddhist petty Bonapartism

Jane Russell, in a Blog Comment, dated 21 March 2013, on an article by Izeth Hussain on “Racism and Irrationality as Bedfellows: The Halal Issue and Sinhala Buddhist Extremists”

Izeth Hussain’s article elegantly explains and confronts what on the surface looks like “good ole’ Sinhalese racism’ on the upsurge, after a few years of triumphalist satiation over its victory over the LTTE. Yup, as expected, money, amour propre and stupidity are at the root of it….a minor trade squabble has been inflated (at the speed of light it seems) by Buddhist monks greedy for power, status and money and a government inebriated with hubris and rotten with corruption into a “series of racist incidents”… and just in time for the UNHRC meeting!!! Indeed, as Izeth suggests, one suspects dark artistes of unnamed secret services must be at work here……Can any national government worth its name be this myopic? Sadly, it would appear so….poor Sri Lanka, mired for so long in a megalomanic miasma created by the petty-Bonapartist LTTE is now foundering in another fog of credulity orchestrated by Sinhalese petty-Bonapartists! Bah to all Bonapartists…go find yourselves an empire elsewhere and leave this poor island and its (by far the greater majority of) sweet vegetarian Sinhala-Buddhist people, obsessed with lighting lamps and throwing water on trees well alone! Continue reading →

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Filed under historical interpretation, life stories, LTTE, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, racist thinking, Rajapaksa regime, religious nationalism, riots and pogroms, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, unusual people, violence of language, world events & processes, zealotry

Category Archives: riots and pogroms

Emotional Turmoil and Rumour-Mongering: World Cup Defeats, Pogroms & Elections

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Forging New Paths in Sri Lankan and Colonial History

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Charles Sarvan’s Essays in Sri Lanka : A Paradise Lost?

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The Poet Richard Murphy’s Account of Killings in the 1980s in Sri Lanka

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Buddhist Extremists in Sri Lanka and Burma on the Warpath

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Tamil Person and State: Essays

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Jaffna. Exorcising the past and holding the vision

Neville Jayaweera’s autobiographical reflection on the ethnic conflict … is already raising a storm in Sri Lanka. Here is the PREFACE by Susil Sirivardena

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A Fascist Bhikkhu Force in Sri Lanka?

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Victimized Muslims of Aluthgama-Beruwela express Grief and Legitimate Resentment

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Prabhākaran’s Megalomanic Bonapartism juxtaposed with Sinhala Buddhist petty Bonapartism

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